About George Nash

Dr. George Nash (born April 1, 1945) is the author of the classic work The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 and the multi-volume biography of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer: 1874–1914; The Humanitarian: 1914–1917; and The Master of Emergencies: 1917-1918.

Ronald Reagan’s Road to Conservatism

By |2021-01-02T09:51:41-06:00November 6th, 2018|Categories: Conservatism, History, Liberalism, Politics, Ronald Reagan|

Ronald Reagan did not read his way to conservatism, as some people do. He experienced his way. The concerns and travails of middle Americans taught him that unaccountable government could be a grave obstacle to the pursuit of happiness, and the experience of dealing with Communists and bureaucrats strengthened his lifelong distrust of overbearing elites. [...]

In Honor of Russell Kirk

By |2021-05-10T19:21:32-05:00June 11th, 2017|Categories: Conservatism, Featured, George Nash, Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, Timeless Essays|

What Russell Kirk did was to demonstrate that intelligent conservatism was not a mere smokescreen for selfishness. It was an attitude toward life with substance and moral force of its own. In the book of Ecclesiasticus, it is written: “Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” Today, I propose to honor [...]

How Firm a Foundation? The Prospects for American Conservatism

By |2017-05-17T21:15:59-05:00March 17th, 2017|Categories: Conservatism, Featured, George Nash, Richard Weaver|Tags: |

What do conservatives want? Limited government, they answer; free enterprise; strict construction of the Constitution; fiscal responsibility; traditional values and respect for the sanctity of human life. No doubt, but I wonder: how much are these traditional catchphrases and abstractions persuading people anymore? How much are they inspiring the rising generation?… (essay by George Nash) [...]

Keeping Ronald Reagan Alive in an Age of Impulse and Amnesia

By |2021-02-14T15:33:05-06:00August 9th, 2015|Categories: Conservatism, Featured, Ronald Reagan|Tags: |

Ronald Reagan’s personal qualities do not fully explain his appeal to American conservatives. Reagan gained their favor not so much because of his personality and communication skills but because conservatives liked and believed what he said. His message was more important than the messenger. Perhaps the most important fact to assimilate about modern American conservatism [...]

Herbert Hoover’s Crusade Against Collectivism

By |2020-12-01T14:08:33-06:00January 21st, 2014|Categories: Books, George Nash, History, New Deal|Tags: |

Herbert Hoover perceived in the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt not a moderate and pragmatic response to economic distress but something more sinister: a revolutionary transformation in America’s political economy and constitutional order. Having espied the unpalatable fu­ture, Hoover could not bring himself to acquiesce. This excerpt is adapted from The Crusade Years, 1933–1955: Herbert [...]

A Conservative Historian’s Memoir

By |2022-01-06T22:32:35-06:00October 5th, 2013|Categories: Books, Forrest McDonald, George Nash, History|Tags: |

Above all, Forrest McDonald survived and thrived because he was not by temperament a party-line ideologue and was unfazed by the imprecations of those who were. Unlike too many of his fellow historians who let their present-day policy agendas control their interpretation of the past, McDonald refused to distort his subjects in this way. Recovering [...]

In Honor of Russell Kirk

By |2019-04-07T10:51:57-05:00January 24th, 2013|Categories: Books, Conservatism, Featured, George Nash, Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind|

In the book of Ecclesiasticus it is written: “Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” Today I propose to honor the memory of a famous man, a man who earned his fame by writing about those who, in an intellectual and spiritual sense, were our fathers. In the great chain of being [...]

Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath

By |2014-02-03T11:46:25-06:00November 20th, 2011|Categories: Books, Foreign Affairs, George Nash|Tags: |

Excerpt from: Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath, Edited with an Introduction by George H. Nash (Hoover Institution Press, 2011) The Blunders of Statesmen (From the Editor’s Introduction) In November 1951, a public relations executive named John W. Hill met Herbert Hoover at a dinner in New York City. It was [...]

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